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Poetics

When Oceans Die

If the last fish
Looked to me;
Would I tear its flesh,
Would I tear its flesh,
Would I tear its flesh,
And slowly chew?

What if whales tried to feed
But there was no krill;
Where can it turn,
Where can it turn,
Where can it turn,
When I’m sated?

What if harpoons
No longer fired;
Not for no treaty,
Not for no treaty,
Not for no treaty,
But no whalesong?

When the oceans
Are wasted;
How shall I,
How shall you,
How shall we,
Share the waves with dolphins?

How shall we
Eat and love and play;
As oceans die,
As oceans die,
As oceans die,
When all that remains is loss?

[Written on October, 10 2010, after watching the film Oceans. Revised on October 20, 2010.]

At the End of the Line

At the end of the line
A stop, a silent pause
Before the space
Where meaning reflexively made
Leads to the next realisation of endings

[Written on September 14, 2010, in response to doccie film The End of the Line on the over-fishing of our oceans.]

Shorelines

Alas, the lost of art
In the art of loss found
That offers no more than a miasma
Obscuring inflection
Footprints in the sand washed away
Absence present
In tracing Nature’s entrance

[Written on December 2, 2009.]

A Homage to Ocean Dancers

On an Atlantic meniscus
Shapes, sounds, silhouettes
Glide beneath
Between breaths
Laughter lingering
Stroking
Through wor(l)ds
Wholly present, passing
From moment to memory
Bracketed time framed no less an hourglass levelled
An enchanted re-call
Of oceanic muses at play
Dancing before my bow

[Written on December 15, 2009. A reflection on stand-up paddling with dolphins at Camps Bay on Sat, December 12, 2009. For a video clip from the same morning, check out Hanli Prinsloo’s “The Most Perfect Day“.]

Kommetjie Koma

Inscribed nostalgically on a pastoral genre
a peculiar peninsula
of mind
the penned seclusion of sun-bleached anxiety
blistering scabs of melacoma
etching
a reclusive existence on the wind-blown seascape
of the eye.